IEEE Decides That Its Own Profits Are More Important Than Sharing Knowledge
from the sad-state-of-affairs dept
A year ago, we wrote about IEEE's somewhat ridiculous and aggressive policies towards republishing research it publishes. Apparently, it's getting even worse. An anonymous reader sent over Matt Blaze's story about how IEEE has made their policies even more draconian by forbidding authors from sharing the "final" versions of their papers anywhere on the web. Many academics post such papers to their own websites, or in some cases, to other aggregators or collections. This helps spread important knowledge and information -- which is the point of academia. But, as Blaze notes, IEEE and ACM -- who both should know better -- are being quite aggressive in trying to hold back such information sharing, unless they get paid for it. This is a shame, and reflects poorly on two very important organizations in the tech world. Blaze has decided to protest these moves:Enough is enough. A few years ago, I stopped renewing my ACM and IEEE memberships in protest, but that now seems an inadequate gesture. These once great organizations, which exist, remember, to promote the exchange and advancement of scientific knowledge, have taken a terribly wrong turn in putting their own profits over science. The directors and publication board members of societies that adopt such policies have allowed a tunnel vision of purpose to sell out the interests of their members. To hell with them.It would certainly be nice if others followed his lead.
So from now on, I'm adopting my own copyright policies. In a perfect world, I'd simply refuse to publish in IEEE or ACM venues, but that stance is complicated by my obligations to my student co-authors, who need a wide range of publishing options if they are to succeed in their budding careers. So instead, I will no longer serve as a program chair, program committee member, editorial board member, referee or reviewer for any conference or journal that does not make its papers freely available on the web or at least allow authors to do so themselves.
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Filed Under: acm, copyright, ieee, knowledge, papers, sharing
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the enemies of science need not fear this lily liver
He pleads that his students' careers may suffer if he refuses to publish with the paywallers, but ignores the millions of scholars worldwide who would benefit from the free dissemination of information. I don't know which open access journals would be most appropriate in his specialty field, but almost certainly they exist, and he should back his cogent criticisms by actually publishing in them, thus setting a good example for his students.
*"learned" necessarily apostrophised because of the absence of evidence of learning
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Re: the enemies of science need not fear this lily liver
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Re: the enemies of science need not fear this lily liver
Also, why would these millions of scholars not be able to benefit if he publishes online? It just seems you didn't actually /read/ what he said.
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Not ACM
"Each of the Employer/Author(s) retains the following rights:
...
4. The right to post author-prepared versions of the Work covered by the ACM copyright in a personal collection on their own home page, on a publicly accessible server of their employer and in a repository legally mandated by the agency funding the research on which the Work is based."
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I replaced the icon with another saying "Omitted IEEE Logo" and the sentence: "Permission to use the Logo representing the IEEE, which is a registered trademark of the IEEE, has been withheld."
I know for a certainty that this ill-considered move on their part deprived them of at least 7 new memberships, and it has been 15 years since I, a previously faithful member, subscribed.
I didn't ask to claim it as my own, I intended to give attribution, and the link was a favorable one. How shortsighted were those lawyers?
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Re:
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Nothing New
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This is the problem:
If his (or rather, his students) main concern is their careers, why should they expect their publishers or organisations to be any different?
Principles. Success. No struggles. - Choose two.
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Most persons and organizations submitting papers for possible publication simply acceded to the condition, which, of course, by itself would forclose publication in any form elswhere.
The truth be known,however, the policy was vulnerable to the very, very few who pushed back and said "no". Their papers still were published and life went on without the sky falling. This was my standard response on behalf of a Fortune 50 client, and not once did the IEEE refuse to accept the alternate arrangement.
If authors or organizations are simply acquiescing to the IEEE demand, then they are either desperate or being ill served by their legal counsel.
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Yep. This is a serious problem
In practice, my society really doesn't want authors posting copies of their papers prior to official release. They are, however, unofficially liberal about letting authors post copies.
As an aside, what really bugs me on the 'Net is Google's ability to crawl publishers like Elsevier, show a really good hit, and then let me discover that I need to pay $19 to download a PDF copy. What BS - I refuse to do that. I'll copy the citation and get the article free via my public library's network.
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The comment in #8 & 9 above is significant. The value provided in publishing in a respected journal for those in academia is useful for career advancement. Push back can move "standard" policies wher the concern is expressed. "Value" is discussed here often and each writer needs to determine if the IEEE is providing that value adequate in support of their interests.
Am I disappointed in the IEEE position - yes. But I also don't write papeers and as such it doesn't directly impact me in my professional career. The stake holders sould be the ones to comment and object.
BTW on comment #5, the IEEE Brand is viewed as very important by HQ. There is a long document available on line and they specifically indlcate that all brand images are copyrighted and the IEEE controls the usage. Search for "Brand" on the IEEE site if you are interessted.
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Where is the balance?
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Techdirt Account
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IEEE rights policies
IEEE distinguishes between an accepted manuscript, which is "a version which has been revised by the author to incorporate review suggestions, and which has been accepted by IEEE for publication" and the final published version, which is "the reviewed and accepted article, with copy-editing, proofreading and formatting added by IEEE." It states in the policy that it is fine for authors to post a copy of the accepted manuscript on their or their institution's web site, as long as the author also posts a copyright notice and link to IEEExplore. The only thing they are restricting an author from posting is the published version that is on IEEExplore, which typically has header/footer material added by IEEE.
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That is a lot of money to post something online especially when a lot of volunteers do the work (ie write, review, edit, peer-review, etc)
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why authors get a special interest group treatment from tax layers layers?
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Not knowing the policies
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are they just recouping costs or is it more than this?
I think one point that is important, and has been mentioned by a number of posters, is that there are costs associated with the IEEE publication process that the IEEE itself incurs e.g. copy editing, distribution through IEEE Explore, etc. So if the IEEE is to be a viable organisation it must have some way of ensuring that these costs are recouped.
I do think the notion of a non-profit organisation that promotes the advancement of technology (which is what the IEEE deems itself to be) is important. However, from the comments here and from Blaze's original article people obviously believe that the IEEE is not adhering to this part of their identity.
If this is true then it is a real shame since this is where the integrity of all their activity (i.e. publication, standardisation, meetings/conferences, etc.) comes from. If on the other hand it is false then they obviously need to make a strong and transparent argument to correct this misconception.
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